


Gather Near

by westandvigilant



Series: O How the Mighty Fall in Love [8]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6651202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westandvigilant/pseuds/westandvigilant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas kind of fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gather Near

**Author's Note:**

> a jinglebarricades christmas fic for the lovely, sweet as sugar Sophie Fairyfeuilly hope you like it (i wanted to write straight fluff, i did, i swear)!

_Once upon a time there was a young girl with raven hair and amber colored eyes, shivering in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve. She believed, quite fervently, that Santa did not know where to find her. That maybe he would have known about the second, third, and fourth apartments that she had lived in that year, but certainly not the fifth._

_But if she could wait by the hearth, that cold hearth, and just show him where she was, then he could know. She could show him what a good girl she’d been, taking care of ‘Zelma when her parents were gone._

_That night the hearth didn’t stir, the windows didn’t rattle, and the click-click-click of hooves were nowhere to be heard._

_That was the night she stopped believing._

 

_—-_

“Éponine, listen we can talk about this.”

“No. I’m done talking. This is non-negotiable.”

Enjolras reached at the mitten-clad hand swinging indignantly by her side, steam from the subway grates snaking around them in the ice chilled air. Christmas Eve spun a daunting scene around them, decorative lights being sucked into the hazy gray of a dark afternoon. And the frenzy was written all over her body, in the hastened length of her stride and the snow peppering her hair.

His hand missed her’s, the air stiffening the bones in his fingers and the skin over his palms. “I just-” he made another grab, this time managing to catch the fabric at her elbow. “Can you hold on a second.”

The tassels of her stocking cap bounced as she whipped around, narrowing her eyes. “What,” she demanded, adding a fresh syllable to the word that Enjolras was quite positive didn’t exist.

“I just think that this is a really mindless thing to do, especially with a damn blizzard on the -”

“If we don’t do this now, we won’t have time to hide the thing well enough before the caseworker drops off Azelma and Gav. So. Are you coming  _with_  me or not?”

"Yes,” he answered. Small. Resigned. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go alone.

—-

_Once upon a time there was a young boy with golden hair and sapphire eyes, climbing down the stairs on Christmas Eve. He knew, with years of wisdom packed into his small frame, that Santa hadn’t been there that evening._

_He watched quietly from his perch as his nanny went about her business, wrapping presents and signing them with ‘SANTA.’ And he thought, maybe for a second, that he should go ask his parents about this, to see what reason his nanny could have for forging Santa’s name on gifts._

_But he knew that if he went to their room, it’d be empty. Just like he knew that if he went to his father’s other bedroom, it would be silent and empty and cold._

_That was the night he stopped believing._

—-

He balked at the door, clutching a hand to his stomach as though he were nauseated. The door in front of him swung closed with a jovial jingle of bells, all of which he watched from outside.

“What,” she repeated, as she pulled her homemade scarf from her lips. Her mouth took on that specific slant that it always had when she was done listening to Azelma try to get out of doing homework. A tightlipped slant that existed only to remind you of the teeth that lay behind it.

“What is the point of going out during a blizzard warning to perpetuate a fake holiday scion whose sole purpose of existence is to scare children away from undesirable behavior, lest they not receive gifts? Do you really want to support such blatant consumerism?”

“Are you done yet?” Éponine sighed, crossing her arms while Enjolras turned up his collar.

“Look, Éponine. I already went with you to get the presents for Gavroche and Azelma.”

“This is about the suit isn’t it,” she bit, cocking her hip. “You don’t want to wear the suit.”

Finally, Enjolras broke, his fists balling in his pockets as he yelled, “NO I DON’T WANT TO DRESS UP AS SANTA CLAUS,” as though the words started at his toes and curdled until they burst out of his mouth.

Éponine gasped, “You  _promised_.”

He stepped closer, his voice crystallizing in the cold air around them. “Éponine,” he whispered. “You can’t hold me to that. It was late. I was almost asleep. We had just… My eyes were closed, for God’s sake.”

“Is that so?” she challenged, clearly requiring a better answer than Enjolras had intended on giving.

Enjolras crossed his arms and sniffed. “I won’t help you lie to the children.”

“Really,” Éponine cocked an eyebrow. “Because yesterday you told me that they were too old for Santa Claus.”

“They are.”

“They are in  _grade school_ , Enjolras.”

"I didn’t believe in Santa Claus in grade school,” he replied, matching her arched eyebrow and raising it a haughty head tilt.

“Yeah, me neither,” she broke their stare down with a sigh and kicked at the snow accumulating against the side of the rental shop. He reached out to brush a snowflake from her cheek, only for her to swat his hand away and glare at him with a renewed fervor.

“Fine, I’ll be Santa Claus. You can just wait here,” Éponine said.

“You can’t be Santa Claus,” he deadpanned.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a woman.”

“You’re a sexist little shit sometimes, you know that?” Slush squelched around his boots as she shoved him, hard, with both hands in the chest. For a split second it look like she might be gathering the strength up to shove him once more, so he threw his hands up in wordless defeat.

The bells jingled again as she swung the door open and took a step inside. She was out of view for a second before poking her head back outside with a scrutinizing scowl to regard the shivering version of Enjolras that stood at the threshold. “Can I borrow some cash?”

A slow blink. A long suffering sigh. He didn’t answer, but he reached into his back pocket and offered up his wallet. Éponine flashed a quick smile, full of crooked teeth and victory, before snatching the wallet and disappearing into the shop.

—-

_One day this raven haired girl and this sapphire eyed boy will meet._

_Things will get complicated._

_And they still won’t believe._

—-

The pair returned to their apartment late and the caseworker, with Azelma and Gavroche in tow, arrived too early. The Santa suit, and all it’s many, many accessories, were quickly shoved into a cabinet under the kitchen island and forgotten. And with the smells of pine needles and fresh cookies (for Santa, naturally) marrying to the added warmth of two new bodies to the living room, who could blame them. It was like a blanket had been laid over the apartment, complete with multicolored blinking lights, Motown flavored Christmas songs, and their dog snoring in the corner.

Enjolras leaned against the door frame, mug in hand, watching Éponine and her siblings laboring over the now only partially bare Christmas tree. Well, Gavroche was actually shaking presents when Éponine wasn’t looking, but it was a relaxing tune nonetheless, their laughter mixed with the jingling of loose presents. Yet Enjolras still kept his distance, observing their smiles like a photograph; a blurry photo from a time in his past that he couldn’t seem to remember.

“I can’t believe there are so many,” Gavroche exclaimed while he tried to cross the room, lifting his little feet as high as his knees would allow in order to step over the gifts.

“I know,” Azelma chimed in absently, draping silver tinsel haphazardly over the tree as she watched the snow fall through the window, memorizing every iridescent hue as it stuck to the glass.

“And there will be plenty more tomorrow morning after Santa comes,” Éponine said. The swell in her chest was visible from Enjolras’ spot in the hallway entry.

“Are you sure he knows we’re here?” Gavroche asked.

“Of course! Enjolras,” Enjolras rolled his eyes so hard it actually hurt his corneas, “and I let him know that you were staying with us,” Éponine scooped Gavroche into her arms before kissing him on the ear and whispering, “and that maybe you’ll be coming to stay permanently sometime soon.”

Azelma let a dreamy sigh slip while Gavroche took it upon himself to shake free from Éponine’s grasp and squeal about how gross his sisters were. Then he was bounding across the room into the kitchen, diving into the cabinets and yelling, “Can I have some more hot chocolate please?”

Éponine was stretched out on the floor in an attempt to untangle the last strand of Christmas lights. “Yeah just wait for Enjolras to come in and help you,” she called, but her voice was drowned out from the unceremonious thunk of the Santa suit falling from the cabinet.

And there Gavroche stood, open mouthed, in the kitchen with a mountain of itchy red fur material at his feet. His eldest sister already scrambling to her feet and running into the kitchen. “Uh uhm,” she stammered, dropping to Gavroche’s feet and hastily shoving the suit back into the cabinet, “Santa just leaves extra clothes here and there just in case, uh…”

“Santa isn’t real, Éponine,” Azelma said. “It’s okay. We know. Dad told us a few years ago. And Gav knows it, too, I don’t know why he’s being so stu-”

“I just thought that maybe he lied about it. He lies about a lot things,” the boy murmured, crestfallen eyes wet. “It’s okay, Ép. She’s right.”

She tried to smile through her grimace, tried not to let her siblings know how much it cut that such cynicism had been allowed to rule their young lives. The hope that she could stop that sunk heavy into her gut, turning acrid as it died. She tugged at Gavroche’s sleeve limply as she searched across the room for Enjolras.

He simply regarded her from the doorway with a cool gaze and a cocked eyebrow, before taking a sip from his mug and retreating down the hall.

—-

_But maybe they can change._

_—-_

It’s seven o’clock in the morning when the sounds of Azlema’s voice float through the door and into Éponine’s dream, the soft knocks slowly chipping away at the sleep the woman had lost herself in.

Next was the near deafening crash of Gavroche throwing his body against their door, chanting her name, which immediately shook her awake. She sat bolt upright, inhaling the sharp air that snow-fall at daybreak brings. Enjolras stayed lying out on his stomach, clutching his pillow against the side of his face, a small grunt and the wrinkling of his nose the only evidence that he was aware of the commotion taking place.

“Come in, good God, guys,” Éponine rasped out. “Don’t break down the fu- just come in already.”

The door opened like a flood gate, the kids bursting over the threshold and into the room with excitement flushed faces. They shot across the room with too much speed for such ungodly hour, shoving weird  _things_ into her personal space.

“Éponine, look!” Gavroche exclaimed with eyes brighter than she had seen in years. In his hands he held the clean platter that she had laid out cookies on the night before (it was some sort of denial driven defiance on her part, really, since she obviously knew that there would be no Santa to eat them).

“Gavroche,” she rubbed her palm across her forehead. “Listen, you guys can’t have cookies for breakfast.”

“ _We_ didn’t eat them.”

“Well neith-”

“Santa did!” Azelma interrupted as she thrust a handful of polariods at her sister. “He took these pictures! See!”

Prying her eyes open, Éponine took the photos from the younger girl and saw that there, in fact, was Santa trudging across their apartment building’s roof. And there he was climbing through the kitchen window. And there he was scarfing down the cookies.

Gavroche began to jump up and down next to her, his cheeks puffed up with anticipation. “And he left presents, too! Come on!” He grabbed Azelma’s arm and they stumbled out of the room with the same cyclonic force with which they entered. 

Their room was now quiet, but it buzzed with two heart beats. Warm in a way that only winter requires.

Éponine took one last look at the photos and stifled a small laugh at Santa’s painfully thin legs and the overly regal line of his nose. She looked over at the man sleeping at her side, kissing his shoulder blade and slipping her fingers under the pillow to find his own.

“Your cookies sucked,” he mumbled into the pillow.

“Baking recipes require you to be all exact and stuff. It’s never been my forte,” she said. “So who helped you out?”

“Courf owed me a favor.”

“You going to come open presents with us? Or did Santa just tell you what your getting himself…”

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” his voice sounded like gravel in motor oil, rough and slick all at once. “I’m getting up, one second.”

“I can wait, but I can’t promise that Azelma and Gav can.” Éponine left one more kiss on his shoulder blade then moved to his cheek, slowly pressing her lips into his marble skin.

“Thank you,” she whispered, his eyelashes tickling her nose.

He grunted his reply, giving her hand one last squeeze before she pulled away, forcing her to linger, forcing her to pause in his grasp. Just one last moment that was all theirs before surrendering to the holidays.

_—-_

_Maybe they will change what they believe._

_Maybe this raven haired girl and this sapphire eyed boy will learn to believe in each other._


End file.
